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To be vexed at a trifle or two that I writ,

Your judgment at once, and my passion you wrong: 10 You take that for fact, which will scarce be found wit: Odds life! must one swear to the truth of a song?

What I speak, my fair Chloe, and what I write, shows
The difference there is betwixt nature and art:

I court others in verse; but I love thee in prose:
And they have my whimsies, but thou hast my heart.

The god of us verse-men (you know, child) the sun,
How after his journeys he sets up his rest:

If at morning o'er earth 'tis his fancy to run;
At night he declines on his Thetis's breast.

So when I am wearied with wandering all day,
To thee, my delight, in the evening I come:
No matter what beauties I saw in my way;
They were but my visits, but thou art my home.

Then finish, dear Chloe, this pastoral war;
And let us, like Horace and Lydia, agree:

For thou art a girl as much brighter than her,

As he was a poet sublimer than me.

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FOR MY OWN MONUMENT

As doctors give physic by way of prevention,

Mat, alive and in health, of his tombstone took care; For delays are unsafe, and his pious intention

May haply be never fulfilled by his heir.

Then take Mat's word for it, the sculptor is paid, That the figure is fine, pray believe your own eye; Yet credit but lightly what more may be said,

For we flatter ourselves, and teach marble to lie.

Yet, counting as far as to fifty his years,

ΙΟ His virtues and vices were as other men's are;
High hopes he conceived, and he smothered great fears,
In life party-coloured, half pleasure, half care.

Nor to business a drudge, nor to faction a slave,
He strove to make interest and freedom agree;

15 In public employments industrious and grave,
And alone with his friends, lord, how merry was he!

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Now in equipage stately, now humbly on foot,

Both fortunes he tried, but to neither would trust; And whirled in the round, as the wheel turned about, He found riches had wings, and knew man was but dust.

This verse little-polished, though mighty sincere,
Sets neither his titles nor merit to view;
It says that his relics collected lie here,

And no mortal yet knows too if this may be true.

Fierce robbers there are that infest the highway,

So Mat may be killed, and his bones never found; False witness at court, and fierce tempests at sea, So Mat may yet chance to be hanged, or be drowned.

If his bones lie in earth, roll in sea, fly in air,

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To fate we must yield, and the thing is the same, 30 And if passing thou giv'st him a smile, or a tear, He cares not yet prithee be kind to his fame.

TO A CHILD OF QUALITY

FIVE YEARS OLD, MDCCIV, THE AUTHOR THEN BEING FORTY

LORDS, knights, and squires, the numerous band,
That wear the fair Miss Mary's fetters,
Were summoned by her high command,
To show their passions by their letters.

My pen among the rest I took,

Lest those bright eyes that cannot read Should dart their kindling fires, and look

The power they have to be obeyed.

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Not quality, nor reputation,

Forbid me yet my flame to tell,

Dear five years old befriends my passion,
And I may write till she can spell.

For, while she makes her silkworms beds
With all the tender things I swear;

Whilst all the house my passion reads,
In papers round her baby's hair;

She may receive and own my flame,

For, though the strictest prudes should know it, She'll pass for a most virtuous dame,

And I for an unhappy poet.

Then too, alas! when she shall tear
The lines some younger rival sends;
She'll give me leave to write, I fear,
And we shall still continue friends.

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'Tis so ordained, (would Fate but mend it!) That I shall be past making love,

When she begins to comprehend it.

JOSEPH ADDISON

FROM AN ACCOUNT OF THE GREATEST
ENGLISH POETS

OLD Spenser, next, warmed with poetic rage,
In ancient tales amused a barb'rous age;
An age that yet uncultivate and rude,
Where'er the poet's fancy led pursued

Through pathless fields, and unfrequented floods,
To dens of dragons, and enchanted woods.
But now the mystic tale, that pleased of yore,
Can charm an understanding age no more;
The long-spun allegories fulsome grow,
While the dull moral lies too plain below.
We view well-pleased at distance all the sights
Of arms and palfreys, battles, fields, and fights,
And damsels in distress, and courteous knights.
But when we look too near, the shades decay,
And all the pleasing landscape fades away.

Great Cowley then (a mighty genius) wrote,
O'er-run with wit, and lavish of his thought:
His turns too closely on the reader press:
He more had pleased us, had he pleased us less.
One glittering thought no sooner strikes our eyes
With silent wonder, but new wonders rise,

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